3 things we can do instead of complaining

In everyone of us there is a little complainer. 

Every now and then we find ourselves complaining about different things in our lives. We complain about all kind of things like weather, politicians, our financial situation, partners, our managers, colleagues, jobs, neighbours and the list can go on.

What is all the complaining for? 

Maybe for attention, sympathy or validation. Maybe because it's easier to complain than to find a solution, maybe to avoid responsibility or just because we might think it's a good conversation starter. 

Since we spend so much time at work, this is also most of the time a great source of reasons for complaining: colleagues, management, offices, policies, AC, equipment, coffee, Mondays, working hours, parking places, cleaning person and about so many other things. Whatever the reasons are, if we do it too often we will not even realize that it has become part of our attitude. It has become a habit and we have become complainers. 

Complainers usually transmit negative feelings, they are pesimistic and they are not open to think about solutions. If in the private life we can choose the persons we spend time with, at the workplace we can't always do this.  

Since it doesn't make  much sense to try and change the people around us, here is what we can do so that we don't end up being a complainer.  

Generally there are three healty things we can do about unpleasant situations: 

• Change the situation. We do something right now or make a plan that will help us change the situation and make it better in the future,
• Totally accept the situation. We take the things as they are and we will not have negative thoughts or complain about it.
• Leave the situation. We consciously decide to move on and leave behind  the things, environment or people related to the bad experience.                                                                                            (Eckhart Tolle, The power of now)

If we find ourselves in a situation we don't like, the worst thing we can do to ourselves and to the people around us is to stay in the same situation and complain.

Just complaining will not bring anything good.

Problems should never come alone

When signing a work contract the bargain is that the employee will fulfill certain responsibilities mentioned in the job description against a certain amount of money - the salary. However, fulfilling those specific responsibilities it's just the basic part of the contract. 

Employees are expected to act in the interest of the company, to work with others in order to reach company's goals, to use their knowledge and energy not only to solve specific work related issues but also to help improving the existing systems, processes, procedures so that the company's goals will be achieved.

Every time a work related situation needs to be solved and you can't solve it on your own or it's not in your competency to decide about what needs to be done, you naturaly go to your manager. You expect guidance from him and most of the times you expect a solution. 


Regardless of the job title, industry or type of qualification, when it comes to problem solving, any manager would like to see the same thing from their employees: involvement and initiative in problem solving. That’s why for every problem that you bring to our manager you should also have a possible solution, a point of view, a suggestion or anything that you thought about when trying to solve the problem. 

What would you do if you were in the shoes of your manager? What makes you think so? What are the arguments that could support such a decision?

Only after answering these questions you should go to your manager, present him the situation, what you see as a solution and what your arguments are. Your solution might be wrong but that's OK as long you have arguments to support it and you learn from this experience. By doing this exercise you will get better and in time you will be able to find on your own the best solutions. 

This proactive engagement in problem solving not only shows your commitment but also your courage to express your opinions and stand for them, your ability to find solutions and make decisions. You can ask your managers to decide about certain matters or to advise you. However, it’s always a bad idea to expect from them to entirely solve your problems without your input on that. 

Even if you are at the very beginning on a new position or in a new company you can still do your best to understand the problem so that you present it as good as possible and if the experience will allow you, maybe to come up with an idea on how to solve it. If you think the solution you found it's not that good, you should still tell our manager about it and explain your concerns. Let him know that you have put effort and tried to solve the problem before taking the easy way and asking him. 
On the long term, this way of working has many benefits and will definitely put you among the people that have higher chances of being promoted.